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In the ongoing battle against spam, innovative methods have been developed to deter would-be botters from assaulting your inbox. Apart from evil viruses that blow up your circuit board, there’s nothing more hellish in the cybersphere than Captcha. What’s wrong with Captcha?, one might say. Well when it was first introduced, Captcha was innocuously cute in its attempts to safeguard my online integrity.

All I had to do was type simple phrases like “Katie sings” and everything was good to go. Twelve years later, Captcha has evolved into a sleeker, smarter, cerebral torturing device. It seems that the misanthropes in IT have forgotten what it’s like to be human and devised algorithms that churn out infuriatingly impossible to decipher nonsensical phrases.They tell you the characters aren’t case sensitive, but then the bastards take the liberty of mixing upper and lower case letters with cloudy cursives and smart alecky numbers. Add an inksplotch to break up foreground formation and things start to get ugly. Words that bend in the middle like some bad acid trip. My 20-20 vision has a tough time distinguishing Captcha combinations - what to say of the visually impaired? Let’s hope I get it right this time.

I’m promptly informed that the phrase I have entered does not match the one onscreen. Captcha generates yet another mindboggler that defies all attempts at rational explanation, so I choose another. How nice of them to grant me the freedom to select my randomly assigned punishment. Is that squiggle a u or an e? Listen you Captcha cunt, I’m not an effing bot so cut me some slack already.

Wait…looks like I’ve lucked out this time with eggSpun 8lrm. Whatever. I just want to apply for this damn job on the anal retentive employer’s website. Everything’s cool for now, as I am notified that my submission has been accepted, but I will inevitably run into this vexatious brick wall somewhere down the road. Until a pornstar becomes president, there is no escape from the sadistic mindscramble of Captcha.